Dr Gabor Lukács, a mathematician of some renown, is well known to airlines in Canada and even better known to the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) for reasons unrelated to his mathematical prowess. As an air passenger rights advocate, he has brought more than two dozen complaints to CTA and caused several airlines to change their policies and tariffs. Always self-represented, Lukács has had frequent success at hearings before the CTA.

Earlier this year, he took on the CTA itself by bringing an application for judicial review to the Federal Court of Appeal. The application concerned the CTA’s refusal to provide unredacted documents to Lukács (Lukács v Canadian Transportation Agency, 2015 FCA 140). In making its decision, the Federal Court of Appeal had to consider the “duality of the Agency’s functions” and the application of and relationship between the open court principle and the Privacy Act. The privacy commissioner was granted leave to intervene in Lukács’ application.